halo effect
by shadows and sunshine
Summary: She never pretended to be an angel.// Hermione Granger dreams, the year after the war.


Written for the 'I never' challenge at the HPFC forum. Very fun. Enjoy.

xxx

halo effect

--it's always about the eyes. Bad romance novels praise copper irises, chocolate brown sapphire blue; she knows because she keeps these books hidden within the pages of others, huge history tomes and other texts with hard covers and thick, yellowing pages.

(she knows because she loses herself in pools of color that _should _be blue but aren't, they're green and on the cover of every newspaper of magazine in the country, taunting her as if this is Rita Skeeter's sick revenge)

The eyes ruin everything for her, they shatter her carefully built up shell. The eyes make her think that's brave and wonderful and so very handsome without even looking at his face, and anyone would, really, because he's the boy who lived, after all.

She plays pretend well, as if she were a little girl with pigtails and a doll house, pretends that Ron's arms are thicker and he's not as tall, pretends red hair is black and blue eyes are green—it's not much, but it's all she can afford to have, even if it's as real as the myth of true love.

"Breakfast?" Ron asks as he sits down, yawning, his arm over her shoulders.

She nods and forces a smile (her best playpretend face) and gets up to fix it for him.

&

She and Ron go out to dinner with Harry and Ginny, and she looks at him over the rim of her champagne glass—emerald green chocolate brown, like the promises in those horribly trashy romance novels she has hidden in her purse at this very minute—they're talking and the waiter is flourishing a pen as fast as Ginny can give her order.

(she wishes, and it's horrible, that she had red hair and green eyes and were braver and less bookish, and maybe she should work on quidditch while she's at it, and not so in love with Ron and then, maybe--)

But this is only ever a thought, drifting away as quickly as it comes. She's not prone to envy, so she gives her best smile and orders the shrimp cocktail.

&

They have their first private conversation in weeks on a Sunday. She remembers the day (the thirtieth) and the time (three-oh-seven in the afternoon) perfectly, and wonders if this kind of pedantic memory is what being in love means.

"The anniversary is coming up," she says, just for something to say, and he closes his eyes behind his glasses and sighs.

"Another day of firecrackers and visiting memorials," he says. "I wonder if I'm obliged to go every year, just so the Daily Prophet can get some photos and I don't look like an insensitive bastard."

"You're not." She holds her hands in her lap so she isn't tempted to reach out and grab for his. "I understand."

He rubs his eyes, hiding his face, and then looks up. A wide smile spreads across his cheeks. "Ginny's pregnant."

Her heart falls, crashing in her chest, because the look in his eyes is love, pure and simple, and she realizes (as if she hadn't known it before) that he _loves _Ginny.

(they're the hero and heroine in her romance stories, and she's the moony-eyed, love-from-afar minor character who might provide a few small obstacles that are easy to prevail over—and the people who read the books hate _her, _she's the enemy)

She wants to cry when she thinks of this, because she loves Ron—really, she does—and maybe this is an overcast infatuation, but even so, it's powerful enough to hurt.

"Congratulations," she manages. "Is it—"

"It's a boy."

&

She's been observing, as of late. She notices that Ron has long fingers, and although he's grown into his gangly legs, they're still lean and lanky. His long fingers are helpful when brushing her hair back from her neck or undoing her buttons, but they're not Harry's and his eyes are completely the wrong color.

She digs her romance novels out of her purse and reads them secretly when Ron's asleep, in the bathroom cross-legged on the toilet. And when he wakes up, he comes into the bathroom and sits down on the rug before her and waits until she finishes before he says,

"Enjoying that, are you?"

"Yes," she answers, and maybe this—these nighttime meetings—constitutes the reason that she lets his long fingers trail across her skin, tracing patterns in the dark, but it doesn't explain why she aches inside for something more.

"I love you," he says. A kiss on the forehead follows, and she looks up—sapphire blue eyes meeting chocolate brown, but they hero in her story's eyes were green…

"I love you, too." It's not a lie, and yet, at the same time, it's not enough. But he doesn't notice. He's not observant enough to take into account the way her eyes dart to the side when she says it and her voice wavers slightly at the end.

He yawns. "I'm going back to bed. Join me, will you?"

"Yes, of course."

And she wants to believe—really, she does—that this isn't a lie, that when she joins him she won't just pretend that his hair is black and his eyes are green, and she won't think about Ginny's growing belly back in London, and his tender hands rubbing against it.

xxx

Yes, I did it. I wrote an H/HR fic. I didn't think it would ever happen, but it did, and it was fun. As if I haven't made it clear how much I despise this pairing, I'll say that I do. A lot. It ranks just above Dan/Blair with me. But still, it was nice to go out of my comfort zone. Reviews are love.


End file.
